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Desert, Pinnacle 
— Mountain 

by 

GEORGE CLARKE PECK 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 



Copyright, 1914, by 
GEORGE CLARKE PECK 



SEP 24 1914 



©CI.A379649 



> 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Desert 7 

The Pinnacle 29 

The Mountain 49 



5 



Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into 
the wilderness to be tempted. . . . And 
when he had fasted forty days and forty 
nights he was afterward an hungered. And 
when the tempter came to him, he said, If 
thou be the Son of God command that these 
stones be made bread. . . . Then the 
devil taketh him into the holy city, and 
setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 
and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of 
God cast thyself down. . . . And the 
devil taketh him up into an exceeding high 
mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms 
of the world and the glory of them. And 
saith unto him, All these will I give thee if 
thou wilt fall down and worship me. . . . 
Then the devil leaveth him, and behold 
angels came and ministered unto him. 

—St. Matthew. 



6 



THE DESERT 

If you were to open the door 
suddenly upon The Temptation of 
our Lord, what would you see? 
I mean, in case nobody told you 
what you were expected to see, as 
Baedeker's and tourist guides tell one 
what to look for in gallery or cathe- 
dral. Coming unexpectedly and for 
the first time upon the tremen- 
dous transaction described here, what 
would you be apt to see? A Man 
tempted, "even as you and I." 
Of course we must not forget who 
he was. It is immensely important 
to remember that he was different. 
But he was "very man," as the 
ancient creed affirms. And as "very 

man" he was undergoing what every 
7 



8 DESERT, PINNACLE 

full-grown son of Adam has passed 
through on the way to the corona- 
tion or wreck of his manhood. 

I have heard this passage inter- 
preted in such fashion as to spoil 
it — for me. It is representative of 
course. The three temptations, de- 
scribed here, epitomize all tempta- 
tions. But this record is not akin 
to a problem play or a problem 
novel, arranged by the author so as 
to point his moral. It is record 
of the moral strain and anguish of 
a Man who, because he was man, 
from crown to foot, is representative 
in his temptations. Jesus said once, 
"I beheld Satan as lightning fall 
from heaven." We might behold 
that too. But I am not sure that 
the vision would avail to keep us 
from falling. I cannot understand 
how an angel would want to fall. 



AND MOUNTAIN 9 



"By pride the angels fell/' says a 
great voice. It is not clear, however, 
what pride would mean to an angel, 
or what would be the pathology of 
such a malady, or the prognosis 
either. Therefore the angels may 
keep on falling, or may sturdily hold 
their shining seats forever, so far 
as practical bearing upon our lives 
is concerned. But when a man 
goes hot with passion, or cold with 
fear, or white with anger; when one 
of our flesh is tempted to gratify a 
lower at the expense of a higher 
hunger; to short-cut his way to 
power by ignoble methods; or to 
fall down before any of the gods 
of expediency or custom, my soul 
is engaged, on the instant. I know 
the battle, and I yearn to watch 
its issue in him. 

Such is the human interest of 



10 DESERT, PINNACLE 

our Lord's temptation. If he was 
tempted in essentially different fash- 
ion from the way we are tempted, 
what, for us, is there in the record? 
Because he was "tempted in all 
points like as we are," and yet 
won his fight, he can help us. This 
is what I see, then: a Man besieged, 
hounded, racked by evil; tried in 
the grain of his manhood (for there 
is no use tempting any man against 
the grain, any more than in suggest- 
ing flight to a trout or swimming 
to a thrush); in double jeopardy 
because the tempter came to him 
disguised — as he nearly always does 
— as an angel of light; a Man who 
might have failed at the beginning 
of the highest business that ever 
engaged a son of woman — this is 
what I see. You may see any- 
thing else you like. This is what 



AND MOUNTAIN 11 



I see. And I think it is enough 
to see just now — a Man battling 
magnificently for his soul. 

Would you be interested to know 
precisely when this historic battle 
occurred? I cannot give the date, 
as one may of Actium or Waterloo 
or Manila. You cannot celebrate by 
a red mark on your calendar this 
immortal victory. Perhaps it is 
better so — most of the calendar dates 
are preempted already. Moreover, 
this is a battle you need to cel- 
ebrate every day in the year. It 
befell just after an exalted season. 
Almost the last thing we hear be- 
fore the clash of spiritual arms 
begins in this struggle is the sky- 
word, "This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased." Straight 
from that supernal glory went Jesus 
to his siege of temptation. From the 



12 DESERT, PINNACLE 

heights of felicity to the verge of 
disaster; from new vantage ground 
to new peril; from fresh power to 
fresh solicitation by evil — was it 
ever otherwise? Sheer and terrible 
from the summits of privilege yawn 
the black chasms of dismay. David 
as shepherd would never have plotted 
the ruin of Uriah. 'Twas what he 
saw from the roof of his palace — 
that made him fall. Peter was 
relatively safe until he commenced 
to feel how strong he was. They 
gave Benedict Arnold command of 
West Point — with chance to make 
his name a byword and a hissing 
for a thousand years. And poor 
Sulzer! "When he became strong, 
his heart was lifted up to his destruc- 
tion." Till they launched thousand- 
foot ships you could not have a 
Titanic disaster. The high-powered 



AND MOUNTAIN 13 



car means access of danger to every 
pedestrian. Huge aggregations of 
capital are tempted to new dev- 
iltries — or old deviltries on colossal 
scale. Wherever you turn you see 
this truth illustrated — and 0, the 
pathos of the vision! Give your 
boy his first knife and you have 
furnished him new means of harm- 
ing himself. Elect your candidate to 
office, and God knows what he will 
do with the enlargement of his 
power. Open a new field of enter- 
prise or endeavor, and every acre 
means increased peril of misuse. 
You can grow so many more weeds 
in a ten-acre than in a half -acre plot ! 

Shall I use still plainer speech? 
Some day your salary is doubled. 
Thank God! I am glad. But do 
you realize that certain dangers are 
doubled also? Some day there comes 



14 DESERT, PINNACLE 

a great love into your life. God 
gave it. He is the bes tower of all 
such precious things. Yet you have 
never greatly loved unless you realize 
the possible hurt of such a love. 
Some day a child enters your 
home. Sing your "Magnificat" — 
whether your name be Mary or 
plain Jane. You have been crowned ! 
But what will you do with your 
crown? Motherhood means also that 
the woman whom God has thus 
honored may fail a little more 
egregiously than her maiden sister. 
Some day God gives you an epochal 
experience — such as Jesus had at the 
Jordan when the skies parted and 
Heaven said, "Amen." Ah, the 
thrill of it — and the terror! You 
have got to go off into the wilder- 
ness to determine what use you will 
make of the new glory. A Pharisee 



AND MOUNTAIN 15 



is a religionist who has not learned 
how to make good use of his spiritual 
advantages. You cannot get up in 
the world, even spiritually, except to 
front new and racking temptations. 
To the saint there lie open whole 
new ranges of sin which the ordinary 
sinner escapes. 

No, not even our Lord escaped. 
"Immediately" — with the soft glow 
of the open skies upon Him, and 
the baptismal water undried on His 
flesh — "immediately the Spirit driv- 
eth him into the wilderness, . . . 
tempted of Satan . 9 9 That makes him 
my blood-Brother. He, also, had to 
fight to save his spiritual assets, 
"even as you and I." 

"lis the weakness in strength that I cry for, 
My flesh that I seek in the Godhead. 
I seek and I find it. 

And nowhere else in Scripture do 



16 DESERT, PINNACLE 

we "find it" more wonderfully, more 
thrillingly than here. 

But the temptation itself. It 
was threefold, and we may best con- 
sider each form separately. "When 
the tempter came to him, he said, 
If thou be the Son of God, com- 
mand that these stones be made 
bread/' I do not know how literal 
the record is: nor does it matter. 
What does matter is that tempta- 
tion came to our Lord at the point 
of least resistance. The devil wastes 
no ammunition on us, ordinarily, 
at any other point. This Man 
was hungry — hungry enough, almost, 
to eat the stones which rattled 
under his feet. If only they were 
bread ! 

Did you read the narrative of 
that sportsman who, on a wager, 
spent a month in the woods alone; 



AND MOUNTAIN 17 



entering it naked, without implement 
or food? Do you recall his descrip- 
tion of hunger? You could have 
tempted him during the first few 
days of voluntary exile, before he 
succeeded in covering his shivering 
skin and providing supply for his 
ravening hunger. He could have 
understood the force of our Lord's 
temptation — to satisfy hunger at any 
cost. Stones transformed into loaves 
— yes, Jesus knew he could do it, 
else would the temptation have been 
no temptation at all. You cannot 
tempt a man by the impossible. 
Jesus was "an hungered" after most 
imperious fashion. But stay. There 
is not the first indication that eat- 
ing would have been sin. This is 
not analogous to the occasion on 
which his disciples pleaded, "Master, 
eat." And, for that matter, even 



18 DESERT, PINNACLE 

on the latter occasion, the eating 
of a meal would not have been 
necessarily wrong. All Jesus did 
was to remind his disciples that 
there is more than one sort of 
hunger, and that he preferred a 
hungry body to a hungry soul. 
Starving is not a religious exercise — 
nor fasting, either, if we may judge 
by the teaching of Jesus. Who but 
God put within us all sorts of hun- 
gers? Hunger is God reminding us 
of needs we might otherwise forget. 
To turn, ascetically, away from a 
wholesome meal for body or heart 
or brain is no evidence of love 
for God — no part of a Christian's 
business. 

Shall I be plainer? There is the 
familiar, frank hunger of the body. 
I might say "hungers," but let 
one stand for all. Hunger is an 



AND MOUNTAIN 19 



alarm bell calling for physical sup- 
plies. When the alarm fails to 
sound, the apparatus must be out 
of order. God set it up. And to 
eat is as truly part of religious duty 
as to pray. I think God must have 
been very sorry for thousands of 
saints who, by tantalizing their stom- 
achs, thought to take an additional 
degree in godliness. The "quick- 
lunch counter" is not de facto a 
means of grace — nor is the "no 
breakfast plan" of diet. Jesus hon- 
ored the body, typically, by honoring 
the table. Remember the "first 
miracle that he wrought in Cana." 
Never would he have been so wel- 
come a guest in so many homes 
had he acted like some modern 
dietarians — a few nuts and some 
concentrated cereal — and soon over! 
See him in Simon's house. He did 



20 DESERT, PINNACLE 

not break up the dinner even when 
a scarlet woman began to cry over 
his feet. I am sure he liked the 
way Martha set a table; I am sure 
he did. And, the last thing before 
his betrayal, he ate, with his friends, 
the Passion meal which he himself 
had expressly ordered. No, if you 
are looking for support of asceticism, 
you must look elsewhere than in 
the life of our Lord. 

Then, there is the hunger of the 
heart. And on this too a word must 
suffice. Have you read the story 
of the French soldier who, after 
the defeat of his idolized Napoleon, 
gave himself to the monastic life 
in the order of Le Trappe? With 
almost savage abandon he plied his 
new vocation. For years he never 
spoke — silence being the additional 
vow of the order. Then, just before 



AND MOUNTAIN 21 



he died, the long terrible silence 
broke as a dam gives way before 
a flood. "The emperor — what be- 
came of the emperor?" he whispered 
to the brother who bent above him. 
And with the anguish of an unspeak- 
able heart-hunger in his eyes, he 
was gone. That sort of heart-hunger 
was meant to be satisfied. When 
the Kingdom fully comes in there 
will be no hearts crying for mates, 
for friendships, for earner aderie. Love 
is of God, all of it, or else it is not 
love, but something less. There 
needs always to be good reason 
for starving the heart. And the 
reason will ever be found in the 
imperfection of the world — not in the 
perfection of God. What a comrade 
Jesus was! And how men and 
women loved him in the days of 
his flesh! He honored forever the 



22 DESERT, PINNACLE 

hunger of the heart. He made 
Peter a better husband, and Mag- 
dalen fit to be wife, and John a 
finer son. He had seasons apart 
of course — in the mountain, in the 
garden — but he always came back 
to fellowship. And then, knowing 
how men would miss him, how 
hungry of heart they would be with- 
out him, he said "I will pray the 
Father, and he shall give you an- 
other Comforter, that he may abide 
with you forever/ 5 

Then, there is the hunger of the 
mind: a word on that. The "Cir- 
cuit Rider's Wife/' in a fascinating 
little volume by that title, describes 
her ungodly joy over a new silk 
dress. She was so tired of drab 
and black. And ministers' wives 
were supposed to be quite above 
consideration of color. They are 



AND MOUNTAIN 23 



still — in some places. Time and 
time again I have heard a Christian 
woman say, in abject apology: "I 
do so love pretty things." Well, 
why not? God does. He could 
have made apples grow without 
first filling the orchard with blos- 
soms. He need not have dotted 
and spangled meadows with gold and 
crimson and blue. He might have 
left the diamonds off the grass in 
the morning — if he had not "loved 
pretty things." Our Lord himself 
"loved pretty things." He had often 
"considered the lilies" before he 
challenged his disciples so to do* 
Had he lived in our day, he would 
have loved Kirmenshaw rugs, and 
Corot's canvases, and Rodin's sculp- 
ture. He wore to his cross a seam- 
less robe! 

What, then, of the temptation? 



24 DESERT, PINNACLE 

It was not, primarily, a temptation 
to eat. Jesus might have eaten 
without sin. Probably the first thing 
he did after the ordeal passed was 
to satisfy the honest hunger of his 
body. His temptation was of the 
soul, not of the body: it was a 
temptation to use power ignobly. La- 
bor agitators and others have made 
much of the fact that the starving 
man who steals a loaf of bread goes 
to jail, while the financier who steals 
a railroad gets a senatorship. Jesus 
would have been quick, in this in- 
stance, to take the side of the 
plaintiff. None was ever more 
lenient than he with the sins 
of the body, none more terrific 
in condemning the sins of the soul. 
He forgave a scarlet woman right 
royally, while he fairly scalded the 
complacency of Simon, his host. 



AND MOUNTAIN 25 



His own temptation that day, in 
the wilderness, was no such crude 
affair as a temptation to satisfy 
hunger; it was fine, specious, worthy 
the mettle of the Son of God. It 
was a temptation to forget his birth- 
right, to bedevil his power by dis- 
play, on a dare, or merely for the 
thrill of exercising it. 

Temptations of power — you know 
what they are. They come to every 
man or woman who is lifted a social 
or moral inch above the commonalty. 
Have you ever seen a father bully 
his son? He called it use of au- 
thority, but it was chiefly exercise 
of superior power. "I will teach 
you who is master," he says. And 
"the Lord was not in the whirlwind." 
Have you heard employers say con- 
cerning protesting employees, "Well, 
what are they going to do about 



26 DESERT, PINNACLE 

it? We have the money and the 
brains. We can make them starve." 
"And the Lord was not in the 
earthquake." Have you ever been 
tempted to profit by the fall of 
another man, to lord it over a 
weaker brother, to take advantage 
of woman's love or trust, to best 
your competitor while his soul was 
sore? "And the Lord was not in 
the fire." You know the feel of 
such moods? Then you know the 
kind of temptation that came to 
our Lord in the desert: the tempta- 
tion of power — to provide for the 
body at the expense of the soul. 

Thy body at its best, 

How far can it project thy soul on its lone 
way? 

What did our Lord? He reached 
clear back into the ancient law 



AND MOUNTAIN 27 

and seized a spiritual weapon which 
had been ready to the hand of 
every instructed Hebrew. New light? 
Sometimes we need it, but usually 
we need only to use the light we 
have. Jesus had not to fashion a 
fresh foil against temptation: He 
found one in the old armory — the 
book of Deuteronomy. "Man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of 
the mouth of God." You cannot 
keep that commandment by turning 
stones into bread. No man can 
satisfy a lower hunger at the ex- 
pense of his soul — and at the same 
time feed on God. "Every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God"— what an infinitely varied 
dietary! Talk of being "starved" 
in the presence of such a menu for 
the whole man. To give the answer 



28 DESERT, PINNACLE 

Jesus gave is to win the first battle 
magnificently. 

He cried, "Nay, nay," to the worldling's way; 
To the heart's clear dream he whispered, 
"Yea." 



THE PINNACLE 

The staging of this tremendous 
soul-drama is consummately done. 
Your twentieth-century playwright, 
with all modern means at his com- 
mand, would be hard put to equal 
the setting — as setting merely — of 
this story. So brilliant is it, so 
almost staggeringly vivid, as to be 
well worth seeing, time and again, 
apart from the immortal soul-drama 
here staged. A scene in the desert, 
a representation of the pinnacle of 
one of the most splendid temples ever 
dreamed out by man, a mountain 
commanding in its view the king- 
doms of the world— such is the 
scenic wonder of the story. But 

29 



30 DESERT, PINNACLE 

scenic effect is for the audience, not 
for the actor. And pity if the 
audience, even, misses the drama in 
the setting. 

The curtain fell, in the previous 
verses, over a Man tempted "as 
you and I." It rises here, over 
the same Man tempted, still "even 
as you and I." Whatever else we 
miss in our study, we must not 
miss him as man. Let not the 
high lights and tropical colorings of 
the piece make him seem other than 
He was — a Man in grapple with 
those forces which unmake the soul 
and defer the coming of the King- 
dom. You may be tempted in the 
street, or in the fastnesses of reli- 
gious solitude; at your desk, or look- 
ing into the eyes of a woman, or in 
your zeal of the kingdom of brother- 
hood. But when you are tempted 



AND MOUNTAIN 31 



you are tempted as man. Your 
own soul is the real theater. Not 
the scenery makes the drama — you 
make the drama — you and the evil 
you combat. 

So with our Lord in his tempta- 
tions. The pith of the business 
is that he was undergoing what 
every grown man and woman must 
undergo. Let me say it again: He 
was all man. His manhood answered 
to siren voices just as ours does, 
else were his temptation the sheer- 
est make-believe. Evil struck at 
him in the desert just as it attacks 
us in bodily weakness; caught him 
when he was hungry and forespent, 
just as it catches us; suggested that 
he meet an important need in an 
unholy and unwarrantable fashion, 
just as it suggests to us. 

But the scene has changed. The 



32 DESERT, PINNACLE 

desert, with its tempting stones rat- 
tling under Jesus's feet, has faded. 
Before us is a "City of all cities/ 5 
a temple whose almost incredible 
beauty struck one Roman conqueror 
dumb and harmless at sight; and 
the Man whom we call Lord. The 
same Man who won superbly in a 
previous encounter, now battling 
again. Again? Are you surprised 
that another contest should be nec- 
essary? Would you think one tri- 
umph ought to suffice? Ah, then, 
whatever else you know, you do 
not know the human heart — either 
your own or your Lord's. Life in- 
cludes no long truces with tempta- 
tion. He who has not recently 
had battle royal with evil in some 
form will do well to inquire into 
the matter of his moral where- 
abouts. He may be in the enemy's 



AND MOUNTAIN 33 



camp, drugged or bound, and dis- 
armed. 

I notice that Luke closes in these 
significant words his account of the 
Temptation: "And when the devil 
had ended all the temptation, he 
departed from him for a season." 
''For a season" — mark you, only to 
reappear in new forms and with still 
more specious and seductive plea. I 
cannot furnish full data of his reap- 
pearances during the life of our 
Lord; but believing Jesus to be all 
man, I do not believe that the 
tempter was ever far or long away 
from Jesus until his dear body hung 
cold and gray "outside a city wall." 

Of course there was a second 
temptation. Have you heard "The 
Storm" played upon the organ at 
Ocean Grove? or, better yet, in a 
certain famous Swiss church? Can 



34 DESERT, PINNACLE 

you shut your eyes now and hear 
it all over again? Then, do you 
remember how, when the fury of 
the storm had passed, apparently, 
and the organ had taken up its 
tender psalm of trust and prayer, 
suddenly the thunder crashed again? 
Snarling sullenly, as in rage; snapping 
and howling horribly like a balked 
beast, it broke in upon the hymn. 
So in life. There are no long inter- 
ludes of uninterrupted melody, few 
unjarred seasons of rest and peace. 
Evil, like Mephistopheles, promises 
to see Faust again; or, failing to 
promise, fails not to come. The 
only way to escape a second great 
battle is to lose your first one; 
then the next will be easier. "Sin 
croucheth at the door" of every 
new realm of achievement. Win, 
and you must fight again. 



AND MOUNTAIN 35 



When the fight begins within himself, 
A man's worth something: God stoops o'er 
his head, 

Satan looks up between his feet — both tug. 
He's left himself in the middle: the soul 
wakes 

And grows. Prolong the battle through his 
life. 

Jesus did "prolong that battle" 
through his life. And "in that he 
himself hath suffered being tempted, 
he is able to succor them that are 
tempted." Not otherwise! One evil 
resisted could but feebly qualify him 
to help us who are tested every day. 
There must needs be new battles, 
that he might "in all things be 
made like unto his brethren/ 5 

But the new battle: see how 
different it was, even in its setting. 
"Then the devil [having failed once] 
taketh him up into the holy city, 



36 DESERT, PINNACLE 

and setteth him on a pinnacle of the 
temple." Jesus loved high places. If 
he had lived in the Capital, he 
would have promptly climbed the 
Washington Monument. If London 
or Stirling had then been on the 
map and within reach of his minis- 
try, he would have wanted to see, 
in the one case, Bannockburn and 
Flodden Field as they lie spread out 
to the outlooker from Wallace Me- 
morial; and in the other he would 
have tiptoed along the whispering 
gallery in the dome of Saint Paul's. 
So human was he! What full- 
blooded man does not love the high 
places? We began in boyhood — on 
roofs and apple trees. And we never 
really quit until we die. Moses was 
still obedient to what Lowell calls 
our "climbing instinct" when he 
ascended Nebo for his burial. Tow- 



AND MOUNTAIN 37 



ers, hills, mountains — these appeal 
to all of us so long as the blood 
pounds in our arteries. Why, else 
a Woolworth tower? They say that 
famous office building never will pay 
three per cent on the investment. 
But I fancy the owner drew larger 
rate than that when he first went 
up and looked off, across rivers and 
spires, to the hills in the blue 
distance. 

Jesus was man. And being man, 
he did the most normal thing for 
man to do on this, his first adult, 
visit to Jerusalem. He found the 
highest seat in the city — the pin- 
nacle of the temple. I do not 
understand — you may, but I do not 
— that some tempter visibly con- 
ducted him through the streets, and 
up the temple stairs. Fancy our 
Lord permitting himself to be es- 



38 DESERT, PINNACLE 

corted about like that, by an obvious 
and labeled tempter! Evil would 
not deceive anybody after that fash- 
ion. Never mind the horns and 
tail — they will not be visible next 
time you are tempted. No, Jesus 
did the most natural thing in the 
world. Being in Jerusalem — perhaps 
drawn thither for the purpose — he 
climbed to the highest accessible 
eyrie of the temple, and looked 
down to the pavement beneath. 

I have wondered if, indeed, that 
climb was not part of the tempta- 
tion. Take your own case. Can 
you lay your finger upon the point 
at which a particular temptation 
began? Was it when you embarked 
upon a new enterprise? or after you 
felt deep water beneath the keel 
of your ship? or when some choice 
prize for the buccaneer hove in 



AND MOUNTAIN 39 



sight? They say that many an 
automobile has cost its owner his 
hope of heaven. But when did the 
moral bankruptcy begin? Was it 
at first dawning of definite desire 
to own a car? or when he sat at its 
wheel as owner? or an occasion of 
the initial temptation to run it 
unrighteously? There must have 
been a beginning of the evil use of 
so valuable an instrument. When 
was it? 

Poor "Bobbie" Burns — how will 
you date his fall? Was it in the 
quiet, religious home into which he 
was born? or on his first visit to 
London? or in his first deep wild 
look into a woman's eyes? or in his 
appointment as exciseman? Poor 
Bobbie! he was always lashing him- 
self for falling. But when did he 
really begin to fall? I wonder if 



40 DESERT, PINNACLE 

he knew? Or, take the case of 
Judas. Judas has always been as 
much mystery as miscreant, chiefly 
because we do not know how to 
diagnose his malady. When did the 
tragedy begin? Not, certainly, on 
the night of the Passion meal; not 
even at the time of his first perfid- 
ious interview with the priests. How 
far back must you travel to find 
the initial impulse toward his colossal 
infamy? Back to some misunder- 
standing with his brother disciples? 
or to impatience with his Lord's 
quiet ways? or to some deserved 
rebuke of personal fault? Who can 
say? 

But, some day, temptation which 
has long been smoldering, flares 
wickedly. You know how super- 
heated woodwork will insidiously 
char. The telltale smell is through 



AND MOUNTAIN 41 



the house: you recognize it plainly. 
But you cannot localize the danger 
— until some charring timber breaks 
into open flame. A recent inven- 
tion promises to make the deadly 
"firedamp" toot its own warning to 
endangered miners. And in certain 
mines you may see the operatives 
carrying canaries whose hyper-sen- 
sitiveness to poisonous gases will, in 
case of need, give the workers ample 
time to escape. I wonder if we shall 
ever find similar safeguards against 
moral harm. In matters of the 
soul the mischief is often done be- 
fore we realize that mischief is even 
brewing. Or we are so weakened 
by insidious poison that we cannot 
escape when the cry of peril sounds. 
We sing about 

A sensibility of sin, 
A pain to feel it near. 



42 DESERT, PINNACLE 

But even that is not adequate pro- 
tection when immortal issues are at 
stake. What we need is such a 
"sensibility of sin" as shall enable 
us to feel it, painfully, while it is 
still far away. Even though it were 
unwise for our Lord to be on the 
pinnacle that day, he was strong 
enough to meet temptation when it 
reared its ugly head. How about 
us? I fear that, in the same circum- 
stances, we should be so morally 
weakened by the climb, or so dizzy 
because of the height, or so stam- 
peded by the fine sound of the 
tempter's challenge, we should come 
huddling down to the pavement in- 
stead of returning the way we came 
— by the stairs. 

That was the temptation — to jump 
instead of using the stairs. "If 
thou be the Son of God, cast thy- 



AND MOUNTAIN 43 



self down/' Jesus knew he could 
— else the temptation were farcical. 
The way of the stairs was long and 
dark and winding. Jesus knew: he 
had come up that way. And he 
was human enough to love ease— 
"even as you and L" Perhaps 
there swept over him for an instant 
that strange madness which often 
seizes people at great elevations — 
the impulse to jump. Just a swift 
trusting of himself to his Father, 
and he would be walking the pave- 
ments again, safe, serene, and with 
a new thrill in his soul! What a 
testimony, moreover, to the validity 
of his credentials ! How the citizenry 
would gape, and then acclaim him! 
Jesus saw it all, in a flash — the 
advantage of the plunge as com- 
pared with the stairs. "If thou be 
the Son of God, cast thyself down." 



44 DESERT, PINNACLE 

Do not you know the grip of 
that temptation? You must if you 
are entirely human. Not the labo- 
rious stairs, but the quick, theatrical 
flight — terribly familiar is the mood 
which so elects. Love of the spec- 
tacular, sense of self-importance, the 
gambler's instinct (I should like to 
speak of each in turn) all combine 
to tempt us, as our Lord was 
tempted, centuries ago. 

For example, you see this tempta- 
tion in business: not in "big bus- 
iness' 5 only, but in shops where the 
proprietor is buyer, salesman, janitor, 
and errand boy all in one. Men 
called James R. Keene a plunger, 
meaning that he had the hardihood 
to gather all together and take his 
leap. Let him stand as the type, 
if you please. But you will find his 
counterpart on a smaller scale any- 



AND MOUNTAIN 45 



where business is done. Rare is the 
merchant who has not been tempted 
to short-cut the distance to success. 
The ordinary stairs are so laborious 
and take so much time, whereas 
the rewards of sharp bargains and 
cut-off corners are so quick. You 
remember "The Case of the Seven- 
teen Holes." It was estimated that 
the Sugar Trust made millions of 
dollars by that short-circuit method. 
But the principle remains unal- 
tered when dimes only are the 
stake. Ordinary, honest methods 
are so circuitous. Do you know the 
temptation — to take the plunge in- 
stead of the stairs? One day Mr. 
Huyler entered the factory just as 
a huge batch of candy proved to 
be below grade. "Destroy it," was 
his word. "But, Mr. Huyler, there 
is too much to throw away. We 



46 DESERT, PINNACLE 

can dispose of it at bargain prices." 
"Not one pound !" was his final reply. 
Not the plunge, but the stairs ! 

You may find the same mood in 
the church. I sat one day in the 
vestry of a famous sanctuary, chat- 
ting with a chum of years long 
gone. The bell rang. "Excuse me," 
he said, but in a moment he was 
back. "It is a parishioner wanting 
to talk with me: I must put on my 
stole." And the man who disap- 
peared through the doorway was a 
different man. O, the inveterate 
love of the spectacular! How in- 
stinctively we prefer the leap of 
professionalism to the slow, tedious 
process of feeling our way into the 
souls of others. We want the King- 
dom to come "with observation." 
This, according to some wise stu- 
dents, is the cue to Judas's case. 



AND MOUNTAIN 47 



He was a churchman to the end 
of the chapter. He did not want 
to destroy Jesus : he wanted to force 
Jesus to do what Jesus refused to 
do on the temple pinnacle — to make 
splendid bid for the world's homage. 
And when Judas realized what he 
had really done, "he went out and 
hanged himself. " 

You will meet the same temptation 
in your deepest soul. What else 
is the meaning of the strident voice 
of individualism. You want "to live 
your own life/ 5 to trust to the full 
your own power, to take the plunge 
in love or doctrine or spiritual exper- 
iment. Your Lord chose the stairs. 
"Is the disciple above his Master 
and the servant above his Lord? . . • 
It is enough for the disciple that 
he be as his Master, and the servant 
as his Lord." To the stairs, then! 



48 DESERT, PINNACLE 

How will you find them? As did 
your Lord. To the tempter he 
answered, hotly, "Thou shalt not 
tempt the Lord thy God." Mind 
you, Jesus was not forbidding the 
tempter to tempt him. He was 
forbidding himself to tempt his 
Father. That would have been the 
deviltry of taking the plunge in- 
stead of the stairs. I do not know 
what the immediate issue might 
have been had Jesus cast himself 
down from the temple. But this I 
know: the man who took such un- 
warranted and unholy leap would 
have few to love, and none to die 
for him to-day. 



THE MOUNTAIN 

Again, by the magic of a few 
vivid words, the scene changes. I 
think that we were expecting it 
to change. Coming for the first 
time upon this scripture, we should 
look for a longer story than that 
already studied. If one test of 
spiritual arms did not suffice, why 
should two? Perhaps it is our nat- 
ural love of encounter asking for 
more — even though the combat be 
so terrific, and the issues so eternally 
fateful, as here. There is in most 
of us a touch of the spirit which 
Sandy observed in his dog: "He's 
that sairious he just never can get 
enough of fechtin." Or we are 
breathless with the ominous crash 

49 



50 DESERT, PINNACLE 

of destinies, and vaguely feel that 
the ordeal is not over. There must be 
more. This time we are right: there 
is more. For, even as we watch, 
the sharp outlines of the temple 
soften, blur, dissolve — as on a mod- 
ern screen — and a mountain looms 
hulking and shadowy before us. A 
mountain crested with one lone fa- 
miliar Figure silhouetted against the 
brilliant Judsean sky. A mountain 
on which the Son of God fought 
out his third battle with temptation 
— "even as you and I." 

No, I cannot locate the mountain 
geographically. Unfortunately per- 
haps. We love names and dates. 
It pleases us to localize great events, 
so that we may make pilgrimages 
thither, in thought at least; and 
build monuments to prod the mem- 
ories of oncoming generations. But 



AND MOUNTAIN 51 



in this instance we cannot point, 
even conjecturally, to a place on 
the map. Remember that this great 
story is poetry as well as prose. 
You cannot photograph the dramas 
of the soul. Notwithstanding the 
brilliant things which science is do- 
ing nowadays, in weighing thoughts 
and catching furtive glimpses of the 
metabolisms of the brain, you cannot 
plot and map the comedies and 
tragedies of the soul. So we can- 
not afford to press too far the 
literalism of this great record. It 
would not distress me to find out 
that the mountain on the summit 
of which we see our Lord was 
climbed, not physically, but in his 
own soul. Earth's tallest peaks are 
not in the Himalayas but in the 
experience of men and women. 
Robert E. Lee was on a mountain 



52 DESERT, PINNACLE 

from which could be seen "the 
kingdoms of the world and the 
glory of them" when a tempter 
offered him wealth, for the use of 
his name, in a lottery scheme, 
"Gentlemen," he replied, "my good 
name is all that I have left, and it 
is not for sale." William of Orange 
had reached a greater than Alpine 
altitude when Spain tempted him 
with succession to the throne if he 
would surrender his cause. And 
Castile heard heaven speak in Wil- 
liam's reply: "Not for wife, nor 
children, nor lands, nor life would I 
mix in my cup one drop of the 
poison of treason." What mountain- 
climber ever got so near the skies 
as Nelson did when, in reply to 
Hardy's plea that he put on a 
cloak to hide the admiralty stars 
which made him a target for the 



AND MOUNTAIN 53 



French sharpshooters, he said: "No, 
in honor I got them; in honor I will 
wear them; in honor I will die with 
them, if need be"? 

So, I say, the name and location of 
a particular mountain do not very 
profoundly concern me — or if there 
was any physical mountain at all — 
as compared with the spiritual truth 
the imagery suggests. Whether or 
not Jesus actually climbed a moun- 
tain on the way to this third and 
supreme struggle does not greatly 
matter. I like to think he did. To 
do it would be like him who so 
loved the hills that he repaired thence 
for his devotions, and preached his 
greatest recorded sermon from slopes 
that ran up toward the clouds, I 
think that, after the desert and the 
pinnacle, he would crave the moun- 
tain solitudes. But no matter. The 



54 DESERT, PINNACLE 

chief thing is what he saw and what 
he did. And it is worth remember- 
ing that neither Palestine, nor the 
round earth, can boast a mountain 
from which could, 'physically, be seen 
"all the kingdoms of the world and 
the glory of them." Our Lord was 
seeing with his soul; not with eyes 
physical, but spiritual. 

It is the vision — not the geography 
— that counts. And, humanly speak- 
ing, our Lord had to have the vision 
described here. The same spirit 
which urged him from the desert 
to the temple would drive him to 
some mount of vision. He needed 
to see what he was battling for — 
"even as you and I." God has no 
right to expect — God never does ex- 
pect — a man to put up a great fight 
for an uncertain prize. Whenever 
you refuse to turn stones into bread 



AND MOUNTAIN 55 



to feed some lower hunger, or de- 
cline to short-cut your path to 
success by making what the world 
calls a "grand-stand-play/ 9 you must 
be amply justified at the bar of 
your own soul. Gratuitous sacrifices 
are as absurd as a third wing on 
a bird or two tails on a dog. 

A certain famous artist kept a 
set of precious stones — emerald, sap- 
phire, ruby, and the rest — to whose 
pure depths he was accustomed to 
turn, from the confusion of studio, 
for refreshment of jaded color-sense. 
Once his friends caught Ole Bull 
clinging to a rocky cliff which jutted 
into the sea. Asked what he was 
doing, at such risk, he said he 
was trying to catch the undertone 
of the waves that he might repro- 
duce it in his music. And Paul said, 
"I so run, not as uncertainly: so 



56 DESERT, PINNACLE 

fight I, not as one that beateth 
the air." You cannot run a great 
race, on either terrestrial or celestial 
courses, nor put up a great fight, 
whether with flesh or spirit, except 
in view of the stakes of the con- 
test. 

When Edison was asked why he 
did not use alcohol, he replied, 
"Because I thought I had better 
use for my head." His answer 
may not be the noblest possible, but 
it is a perfectly valid answer. It 
is plain enough to tie up to, definite 
enough to put into words. And 
when a Christian tells me that he 
does not eat meat on Friday; or 
that he consistently eschews the 
theater, and never touched a pack 
of cards in his life, I like him to be 
very explicit in his reasons for ab- 
stention. He need not tell me: it 



AND MOUNTAIN 57 



may not even be my business to 
inquire. But for the sake of his 
own soul he ought to know why he 
refrains, what real kingdom, visible 
or invisible, he is working for. 
Could you tell? Then it will be 
worth a mountain climb — in your 
soul, at least — to find out. 

In our Lord you always catch 
this note of utter certitude. He 
knew. His life was not a blind dash 
for somewhere: it was a straightaway 
race for one goal. Asked by his 
mother why he had given them such 
anxiety, he looked deep into her 
eyes, and said, "Wist ye not that 
I must be about my Father's bus- 
iness?" And when his disciples 
prayed him, saying, "Master, eat/ 5 
he answered in most unequivocal 
fashion, "I have meat." Most of 
us would have professed we were 



58 DESERT, PINNACLE 

not hungry, or were fasting as a 
religious exercise. Our Lord said, 
"I have meat." 

And I am convinced it was in 
quest of that same certitude he 
came to this third temptation. He 
had to be sure. He needed to see, 
spread out in vivid panorama, "the 
kingdoms of the world and the 
glory of them" — for which he was 
giving his life, and to make sure of 
which he had twice turned the 
savage edge of the tempter's 
sword. 

But the vision: I am glad that 
the evangelist does not attempt to 
describe it: he merely hints. The 
choicest experiences, the rarest out- 
looks never can be described. Some 
day, to the artist in color or tone 
or marble comes a glory through 
the "Eastern windows of divine sur- 



AND MOUNTAIN 59 



prise." Raphael's "Madonna," Han- 
del's "Hallelujah Chorus," Meunier's 
"Toilers" is the result. But what 
real artist would even attempt to 
describe the supreme moments in 
which shone the glory which he 
partly caught and prisoned, and 
partly lost? Some day, upon the 
student, breaks the vision of the 
kingdom of books. Alas that so 
many of our lads and lassies miss it! 
Books, for them, are merely ponder- 
able things, copyrighted, paged, in- 
dexed, and sold for so many dollars 
the volume. A shelf of books is 
chiefly an ornament — like a Wedg- 
wood piece, or a statuette. Less 
than that for some "students" who 
may soon write "B.A." after their 
names. I am thinking of a different 
breed; of the student who, some won- 
derful morning, glimpses the king- 



60 DESERT, PINNACLE 

dom of learning and the glory of 
it. Do you think he could describe 
it? Or would be foolish enough 
to try? 

Some day to aspiring young man- 
hood comes the vision of the king- 
dom of mercantile success, A. T. 
Stewart must have had such an 
experience; and Wanamaker, and 
Carnegie, and a long list of others. 
That experience stamps the man — 
or blights him. Life has henceforth 
a new meaning, a fresh consecration. 
Day and night your great merchant 
is working out his dream. But, 
think you he would attempt to put 
it into words? McClure, the mag- 
azine prince, is telling the story of 
his start in magazinedom. Who 
fancies that McClure is really tell- 
ing what he saw on the mount? 

Some day for a woman — a real 



AND MOUNTAIN 61 



woman — dawns the day of love. 
Love has come: love has come. 
All the soul and body of her respond. 
Apropos of which Marion Crawford 
observes that a woman who has 
had such a crushingly, exaltingly 
wonderful day can never be an old 
maid. Love has come: the glory 
for which she was made. Lovers 
may prove false, but love is true. 
Then, imagine a real woman pro- 
faning the sanctity by trying to 
describe it. 

Some day to the eager soul is 
accorded vision of the kingdom of 
service; as to Wilberforce, to Lin- 
coln, to the Seventh Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, to Florence Nightingale, to 
Frances Willard, to Jacob Riis. O 
the glory of such visions! The 
world's hope is in them. When 
plenty of God's children have caught 



62 DESERT, PINNACLE 

such visions brotherhood will be a 
fact. But what great servant of 
his kind was ever able to photo- 
graph, for ordinary eyes, the king- 
dom-vision which changed his life? 

So with our Lord. What he saw 
that day, as "the kingdoms of this 
world, and the glory of them" lay 
gleaming before him, could not be 
told. Daniel had dreamed of a 
stone cut out of the mountain filling 
the whole earth. But this was 
more. Isaiah had rhapsodized over 
the splendor of a new dominion. 
But this was more. Paul would one 
day write of the consummation in 
which the "kingdoms of this world 
shall become the kingdom of our 
Lord and of his Christ." But Je- 
sus, from his mountaintop expe- 
rience, that memorable day, saw 
more than Paul could ever see. For, 



AND MOUNTAIN 63 



of the new Kingdom he was to be 
King! 

Then came the temptation. To 
our Lord, elate, eager, burning with 
a passion no other heart could ever 
hold — to him came the seductive 
voice: "All these will I give thee 
if thou wilt fall down and worship 
me." Here, indeed, was a full- 
grown soul's temptation. The first 
temptation may be called the tempta- 
tion of the child. It was the tempta- 
tion of the body — the invitation to 
meet hunger at any cost. The sec- 
ond temptation might be called the 
temptation of youth. It was a specious 
solicitation to self-display, to show 
off one's superior powers, to leap 
when ordinary mortals must have 
recourse to the stairs. The third 
temptation is the temptation of man- 
hood. It is the temptation of the 



64 DESERT, PINNACLE 

soul that has found its mission. 
It is born of passionate earnest- 
ness, of consecration to the good 
of others. It blooms only on the 
stalk of redemptive purpose. It is 
the temptation to hasten a fine 
consummation; to move forward the 
hands of the clock; to quickstep the 
march of a world's remaking — per- 
haps with less tears and travail to 
the "Sent of God/ 5 And only a 
Man who had won previous combats 
for sake of the Kingdom could feel 
the clutch of this new temptation. 

"All these will I give thee, if thou 
wilt fall down and worship me." 
How searchingly modern! Rather, 
how timeless the temptation is! To 
pay unworthy homage to convention; 
to bow the knee to the nether gods 
of expediency and worldly wisdom; 
to offer to some substitute what 



AND MOUNTAIN 65 



belongs to God only — and all for 
the sake of advancing one's serious 
business on earth — such is the temp- 
tation. Who escapes it? 

It comes to the artist, as to 
Mozart, prodding him to change 
his style for the sake of a quick 
popularity; as to Millet, warning 
him that he will starve if he does 
not paint what the public likes. 
It comes to the student, warm 
with the glow of his kingdom- 
vision. There are so many easy 
ways to fame. Why should he irk 
himself with the painstaking of 
Macaulay, or the pitiless priming of 
Tennyson's craft? Granted that Dar- 
win held back for many years his 
Origin of Species, and that the king- 
dom he won in science is his to-day; 
perhaps he waited too long. 

Or the temptation knocks at the 



66 DESEKT, PINNACLE 

office door. "Frenzied finance" was 
Lawson's name for it. Some say 
that no honest man can hope to 
be rich. And it is a sort of "hell 
to be poor/' when by merely doing 
what others do, by kneeling to the 
gods of high finance, one may win 
a fortune. Or the tempter comes 
to a woman's soul; to that which 
makes her woman. Must she wait 
for the coming of her kingdom while 
others offer their supreme gift on 
the world's gaudy, commercial al- 
tars? She longs unutterably for love 
and children. Shall she reserve her- 
self, perhaps in vain? Or the temp- 
tation is yours who have seen the 
vision of a world transformed. You 
want something done, and quickly. 
The Kingdom seems to lag. Would 
it not be better to make some sort 
of terms with the world-spirit than 



AND MOUNTAIN 67 



to struggle forward on such unequal 
terms? Let the devil help God to 
bring in the morning! 

You know the voice. It is the 
same that said, of old: "All these 
will I give thee, if thou wilt fall 
down and worship me/' Of course 
the promise is a lie: but it is so 
specious. Perhaps Satan has been 
converted ! 

No, by all martyrs and the dear, dead 
Christ; 

By the long bright roll of those whom joy 
enticed 

With her myriad blandishments, but could 
not win, 

Who would fight for victory, but would not 
sin. 

"Which shall it be "sin or win"? It 
will be triumph, always, if we follow 
the tactics of our Lord. "Then 
saith Jesus," while his soul reeled 



68 DESEKT, PINNACLE 

with the strain, "Get thee hence, 
Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt 
worship the Lord, thy God, and 
him only shalt thou serve/ 5 No 
divided loyalty for Christ. A King- 
dom that could be won by com- 
promise was not worth his campaign. 
Half -loaves? Not when the issue 
was clear-cut between light and 
darkness. At whatever cost of pain 
and tears, of cross itself, he must 
hold his commission undishonored ; 
maintain his service unalloyed. No! 
And falling back before that ever- 
lasting "No," "the devil leaveth him, 
and angels came and ministered unto 
him." 



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